


The Secret Life of Bobs

by AirgiodSLV



Category: Cutthroat Kitchen RPF
Genre: F/F, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 21:46:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9034850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/pseuds/AirgiodSLV
Summary: "That's right," Hot Bob said, clapping her on the shoulder. "You're not the only Girl Bob anymore."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [novembersmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/novembersmith/gifts).



The card on the basket of breakfast pastries from Alton said 'Good morning, Bobs' as it did every day. Bob had been touched by the thoughtfulness at first, and still was, but she was also aware of how tight her pants had been fitting lately.

"New Bob on the floor," someone said behind her, and Bob turned to find Lumberbob looking over her shoulder at the pastry basket. He was wearing one of the flannel shirts that had given him his name, and was hopefully eyeing the bear claw. Bob took pity on him and picked out a cherry danish for herself. It was made of fruit, and therefore healthier than anything else in the basket. At least, that was what she was telling herself.

Bob looked over at New Bob, who was only on the floor in the sense that he was on the couch, taking a disco nap.

"No, no," Lumberbob said, seeing where she was looking. "Not actual New Bob. A new Bob."

New Bob had stayed New Bob through three additional hires, and looked unlikely to be displaced. A new hire was always fodder for interesting gossip, though.

"What's he like?" Bob asked. "Any outstanding features?"

"Not he," said Hot Bob, joining in the conversation. Bob's knees reduced like turkey stock to a gelatinous state. Hot Bob had been on the show for a year, somehow managing in all that time not to look as ridiculous as the rest of them did when forced into Sumo wrestler suits, snowman outfits, and once, memorably, a pair of 1980s short-shorts and a mullet wig. He had the sort of hair that shampoo commercials called 'luxuriant', and a very nice smile.

Bob blamed the stock reduction in her knees for the fact that it took her a few seconds to clue into what that meant. "What?"

"That's right," Hot Bob said, clapping her on the shoulder. "You're not the only Girl Bob anymore."

Bob had been Girl Bob since her first day. It was an obvious nickname, and she hadn't minded. None of the boys treated her differently--except for Tall Bob, but he was weird with everyone. She was one of the Bobs.

It felt odd to suddenly not be everything her name suggested, though. She wondered if New Bob felt this way every time there was a fresh face on the set, too.

"I think you should have the honor of naming her," Lumberbob decided, having reduced his bear claw to crumbs and fallen almond slivers in the space of those four short lines of dialogue. He sucked icing off his thumb. "Show her the ropes, get to know her. Find out what we should call her."

"Is this because I'm a girl?" Bob demanded, fighting the impulse to plant her hands on her hips.

"No," Lumberbob said at once, and at a significant look from Hot Bob, admitted, "All right, yes. But you also haven't gotten to break anyone in yet. Shaman Bob agrees."

"Did Shaman Bob agree to let me name her?" Bob asked shrewdly. Shaman Bob had named himself and many people thereafter, and was the only person on the crew who actually believed he was a shaman. Cowboy Bob had lectured him on cultural sensitivity, but it hadn't done any good.

"What Shaman Bob doesn't know won't hurt him," Lumberbob answered. Bob rolled her eyes.

"Here she is," Hot Bob said suddenly, and bounded over with friendly enthusiasm and flexing thigh muscles to make the new Bob's acquaintance.

Bob sized her up from across the room and took a bite out of her cherry danish. It was stupid and petty to feel like anyone else could make her less special, or less valued on the team. Just because she wasn't the only Girl Bob anymore didn't mean she wasn't unique. She decided to keep telling herself that until she really believed it.

The new Bob didn't look anything like Girl Bob. The new girl had smooth skin like a strong champurrado and a shock of black-and-purple hair that had been flat-ironed into a diagonal, like a cockatoo's crest that had flopped over to one side. Bob had Midwestern dirty-blonde pigtails that just brushed her shoulders and were parted straight and boring down the middle. The new girl wore a shirt of asymmetric color blocks and skinny black jeans with neon sneakers, somehow managing to look both unbelievably cool and trendy and also like she didn't care about what cool and trendy was. Bob was wearing jeans and a hippie-style flower-print top with bell sleeves. The new girl had a secret, crooked smile like the sun coming out, which was being directed full-force at Hot Bob.

Bob sighed.

Hot Bob said something that made the new girl look over in her direction, and then wave tentatively. Bob wrapped her cherry danish in a napkin and went over to introduce herself.

"Testers on the floor!" Tall Bob announced, eyeing the testers with deep suspicion. Bob saw Erica helping to direct a miniature carousel into place and snagged the new girl on the way past.

"Hi, I'm Bob," she said. "You're with me today. Let's go see what our day will be like."

Just like Bob's name wasn't actually Bob, Erica's name wasn't Erica. It was Lindsey, but she and Bob had gotten to talking about Welcome to Night Vale once, about how all of the Bobs were named Bob just like all of the angels were named Erica, and they had decided the testers should all be Ericas, even if none of them were angels. None of the other testers knew what Welcome to Night Vale was, so there was only one Erica after all, but that was okay. Bob liked that both of them had secret names.

"Hey!" said Erica when she saw Bob. "Is this a new hire?"

"Kat," said the new girl. Bob frowned.

Erica just smiled. "Not for long," she predicted. "I'm Erica, it's nice to meet you."

"What's the will of Alton today?" Bob asked. She was a little worried about the carousel. Generally, the bigger the props were, the more ridiculous the day was going to be.

"Carnival theme," Erica answered. "Fried feasts, walking tacos, cotton candy and funnel cakes."

"What's the carousel for?" the new girl - Kat, apparently, at least for now - asked.

"Sabotage," Erica reported. "Force your opponent to make onion rings as part of their fried feast."

"On a carousel?" Bob asked dubiously.

"They have to joust for the slices of onion," Erica explained. Kat and Bob said "Ohhh" simultaneously. All three of them gazed contemplatively at the carousel.

"That's...kind of diabolical," Kat observed.

"That's nothing," Erica replied. "Let's go look at the rest."

The next sabotage didn't even need to be explained. "Oh no," Bob said at once. "Do we have anything to do with that one?"

"No," Erica assured her. "Although the testers agreed we wanted to have Lumberbob try it before show time, to make sure it's weighted correctly. He's stronger than any of us are. I couldn't even get it up past fried cookie dough."

As she spoke, one of the other testers accompanied Bob over to the High Striker and handed him the over-sized hammer. Lumberbob hefted it for a moment, braced himself in a solid stance, and swung overhead with a solid _thunk_ onto the target.

The slider shot upwards, not ringing the bell at the very top, but making it all the way to a respectable 'corn dog'. Erica, Bob, and Kat all applauded politely.

"What did you call him?" Kat asked when they'd moved on. "Lumber...?"

"Lumberbob," Bob answered. "Alton calls us all Bob, but it makes it easier backstage for us to use different names." She pointed around the room, left-to-right. "That's Tall Bob, New Bob, Cowboy Bob, Ginger Bob... There are two Bearded Bobs now, so we have Viking Bob and Hipster Bob. Then there's Hot Bob, Black Bob, Quick Bob, and Bryar."

"Bryar?" Kat asked. "Not..."

"Only Alton is allowed to call him Bob," Bob explained solemnly.

Kat looked nonplussed. "And...Black Bob..."

"Is a pirate," Bob answered, because some things were obvious to Bobs, but less fathomable by outsiders.

"Ah," Kat said. "Of course."

"We're pretty sure you're going to end up the engineer on the train," Erica warned as they walked by the miniature railroad. Under the appraising eye of a tester, Hipster Bob was trying to fold himself into the engine seat, but his knees ended up jammed under his nose and he had trouble reaching around for the wheel. Bob sighed. She always got the small jobs. It was hard being five-foot-nothing on a crew full of towering giant-men. Although at least she never had to hold anything over anyone's head.

They stopped by an old-fashioned playground merry-go-round, also known as a Devil's Wheel, and Bob winced.

"Cotton candy," Erica said wisely. "Alton has decreed that as the sugar spins, so spins the chef."

"Are we going to have to push that?" Kat asked.

"Nah," Bob said. "They'll give it to someone stronger, like H-Hot Bob."

She stuttered over it and immediately felt herself turn bright red in embarrassment. She wasn't the only one who called him that. _Everyone_ called him Hot Bob. She hadn't even been the one to name him. But she had maybe been caught staring a few times on the first day, which she guessed was how he had earned his title.

Kat was giving Hot Bob an assessing look. He caught them watching him and tried to wave with a wide grin, but he was trying to make it up the climbing ropes to get to the cooking oil at the top, and the net promptly flipped and dumped him onto the landing mat below.

"You're all going to be involved in the walking tacos, or most of you," Erica told them. "Alton had us try out a treadmill and an elliptical machine, but we found it's much harder to work while you're moving in a pack of people, two of whom are rolling your prep station ahead of you."

"Diabolical," Bob echoed.

"He's brilliant," Erica sighed, clasping her hands in front of her and looking decidedly starry-eyed. Erica looked at Alton the way Bob looked at Hot Bob, just with more hero-worship.

"Heads-up, Girl Bob!" came from across the room. Bob turned and got her hand up just in time to catch the snack-sized bag of Doritos Ginger Bob had thrown her way.

"Over here!" Quick Bob called, and Bob threw the Doritos on, where they promptly passed from Quick Bob to Tall Bob, who promptly spoiled everyone's fun by opening the bag to eat a chip.

"Why?" Black Bob lamented from atop a horse on the carousel. "Every time, why?"

"Keep-away," Erica explained. "Also for walking tacos. One chef will only be able to use the bags of chips they can get away from you--which, depending on how long it takes, means they might be reduced more or less to crumbs."

"I volunteer as tribute," Kat said promptly.

"Noted," said Erica, who with the other testers recommended assignments for each show based on physical requirements, costume sizes, and the determined begging of the Bobs each morning to either be included in or excluded from certain sabotages. Bob kept a few bribes in her locker just in case of something _really_ bad. She had a box of chocolate-covered cherries there now, but she wasn't going to waste them on trying to get out of the miniature railroad assignment. Hipster Bob was still stuck in there, and he looked miserable. One of the testers and Cowboy Bob were trying to pull him out.

They inspected the bounce house, which both Bob and Kat wanted no part of--although they did linger for a while to watch Hot Bob bouncing under the assessing eye of a tester with a stopwatch and a clipboard, who was making notes about the level of destruction Hot Bob's bouncing would wreak upon a sabotaged chef. Hot Bob's biceps bulged every time he slammed into a wall, and his exuberant bouncing backside was a sight to behold.

Next was the water gun shooting contest, which to Bob's surprise Kat volunteered for. She was put into the line of Bobs being considered, and to Bob's continued and increased surprise, she managed to out-shoot Viking Bob, Black Bob, and Cowboy Bob. Tall Bob ended up with the high score - seriously, he was weird and a little unnerving - but the testers conferred and decreed that they didn't want the chef to be guaranteed a loss, so Kat was in.

"What's your name?" the tester with the relevant clipboard asked Kat. She started to answer, then looked to Bob with an uncertain, slightly anxious expression.

Bob understood at once. Kat no longer wanted to be Kat, especially not on an official show clipboard. Kat wanted to be one of the Bobs. She just didn't know which one she was yet.

Bob decided for her. "Fierce Bob," she told the tester, who wrote it down. She'd seen Kat's shooting, keep-away, and rope-climbing skills first hand now, and if there was anyone fiercer, Bob hadn't met them. Anyway, it was sort of a play on words, if you took a convoluted route...Kat, cat, kitten, and everyone knew kittens were fierce.

"Awesome," Fierce Bob said, and smiled at her. Bob beamed back.

"Alton will be down soon," Bob told her, as Erica went with the other testers to compare clipboards and stopwatches. "He likes to talk to all of us before the show."

"Huh," Fierce Bob said. "I didn't know he...I mean, I've seen the show. I've heard him say Bobs aren't people. I didn't think he cared."

"We're not people," Bob answered, with a swelling sense of pride. "We're better than people. We're Bobs."

Fierce Bob nodded slowly, like she didn't understand, but maybe she was beginning to. Bob's sense of pride swelled further, and she reached for Fierce Bob's hand.

"Come on...oh," she said, realizing that she'd acted on impulse, and was now standing in the middle of the floor, holding Fierce Bob's hand. "Sorry." She told her hand to let go, but it seemed reluctant. Fierce Bob curled her fingers around Bob's.

"It's okay," she said. Her smile was a little crooked, like her shock of black-and-pink hair. Bob didn't feel gelatinous, exactly, but she did feel warm and a bit wobbly, like a well-made plum pudding.

"Would you like to get something to eat, after the show?" Bob asked. "Not here, everything they make here is terrible. But somewhere else?"

"Yeah," Fierce Bob answered. "I'd like that a lot."

"Way to go, Girl Bob!" Hot Bob called from across the room. Bob and Fierce Bob broke apart at once, and Bob turned to face him. "Train engineer and walking taco!" Hot Bob clarified, pointing at the assignment sheet, and Bob felt relieved and a little giddy. She gave him a thumbs-up. He gave her a thumbs-up back, grinning, and then a wink. Bob blushed.

"Shall we go see what you got?" Bob asked.

Fierce Bob smiled her crooked, secret, fierce smile. "I already know what I got," she said, and took Bob's hand again.

Bob had a dinner date and a box of chocolate-covered cherries she needed to get out of her locker. She wasn't going to argue with that at all.


End file.
